Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K Hot Mess – Adeptus Custodes Vertus Praetors
A question. Why does GW keep shoving Custodes Vertus Praetors in our face when they are kind of bad? We need to fix this.
This one is due to seeing another new Adeptus Custodes boxed set that shoves 6 of these models into it. Why? With that let’s brainstorm a bit on how to fix Vertus Praetors because most Adeptus Custodes players have a boatload of these guys collecting dust in their collections.
There are three ways to fix units in the game. You and make them cheaper, make them hit harder, or make them really hard to get rid of. All of these things can be tweaked and changed to great powerful unit. A lot of the time you don’t want to go into one direction to hard as you start to make things too good. With all of these in mind, let’s start brewing to see what we can do to help out the Adeptus Custodes Vertus Praetors.
Make Vertus Praetors Hit Harder
Let’s change their Lance a bit and make it scary. This is supposed to be the golden light of doom as they descend upon the enemy unit. They are supposed to fly fast, fly hard, and get to killing quickly. Currently they don’t really do that as while they have a decent amount of attacks they really don’t have enough of a punch to make it worthwhile. The Lance ability is a good thing and we’ll keep it but let’s add more, with a rule of: if they charge their Melee Weapons get +1 Damage and +1 AP. This will let them wound on a 4+ and do a meaningful amount of damage by spiking it to a 3. I didn’t want to do Devastating Wounds as while that is good I would rather just make them hit decently hard.
Better Shooting Weapons
The Bolter is a fine set up on the bike right now as Bolters work one way through out all the books. The Salvo Launcher though needs some work. Let’s up their attacks to 2 and give them an Anti-Vehicle 4+ option. This will let them have a chance to hurt something big, as well as ensure it isn’t too good versus smaller things. I would also up the AP to -3. I don’t think it needs Melta as it isn’t the same sort of thing but just doing these small things would make the Vertus Praetor’s ranged fire feel a bit more potent and broadly useful.
Let Vertus Praetors Move Faster
This of course could be something that comes with a Detachment but having some kind of option for advance and charge, faster movement, or just the ability to teleport around would be a good thing for these golden jetbikes. These guys are expensive, and they need some way to get to players quickly.
GW is obviously pushing these models on Adeptus Custodes players a lot recently. If they can make them good and worthwhile those boxed sets become very great for getting players to get into the game. They are easy to build, easy to paint, and easy enough to play. They also look FANTASTIC! Which are all good things to get new blood to enter the scene.
Just a few small tweaks and Custodes Vertus Praetors can start zooming up and down the tabletop again.
